Life is Decisions “Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.” (C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair, 1953). Upon first reading this quote, it felt like my grieving period was validated and that I was being encouraged to find my way again through some big decisions that would need to be made. The day I received an email from my, then, husband at the time, stating he no longer desired to remain married and was leaving, was one of the hardest and darkest places I had ever been in. It’s undoubtedly a hard pill to swallow when your dreams and expectations for your life and future suddenly change due to someone else’s choice. However, I have tremendous gratitude for
the support I received from family, in which, enabled me to take the time needed to reach a decision in my first step towards getting my life back in into a positive place. In addition to family support, through a 2 year process I went to counseling, did a lot of self-reflecting, and kept a daily journal. I cannot pin-point the exact moment I snapped out of things with my drive for life pushing me once again, but knew I finally needed to get back to school and find a job I loved doing and one that would employ my artistic and creative side. Choosing to go Le Cordon Bleu, funny enough, felt like a no-brainer and really I don’t know why I hadn’t chosen it sooner. I didn’t run the decision by anyone, rather I simply had a though that I cook and bake every day because I love it, why not be paid for it? I had grown up cooking beside my mama since 9 years of age, I inherited all my grandmas cake decorating supplies as she had her own business when she was with us, and at the few workplaces I always brought some baked goodies into I was always told by many that I should be a chef or have a place of my own. I knew as soon as I did a tour of the school, that it was where I belonged. I have never felt more proud of myself as I do today because of my decision.
could not escape a feeling that this was my own funeral, and you don’t cry in that case”
Loss and How We Cope We all deal with death in our lives, and that is why Michael Lassell’s “How to Watch Your Brother Die” resonates with so many readers. It confronts the struggles of dealing with death. Lassell writes the piece like a field guide, an instruction set for dealing with death, but the piece is much more complex than its surface appearance. It touches on ideas of acceptance, regret, and misunderstanding, to name a few. While many of us can identify with this story, I feel like the story I brought into the text has had a much deeper and profound impact.
Sadly, life is a terminal illness, and dying is a natural part of life. Deits pulls no punches as he introduces the topic of grief with the reminder that life’s not fair. This is a concept that most of us come to understand early in life, but when we’re confronted by great loss directly, this lesson is easily forgotten. Deits compassionately acknowledges that grief hurts and that to deny the pain is to postpone the inevitable. He continues that loss and grief can be big or small and that the period of mourning afterward can be an unknowable factor early on. This early assessment of grief reminded me of Prochaska and DiClemente’s stages of change, and how the process of change generally follows a specific path.
Along with these feelings of rejection, the spouse who wanted to stay married also often feels betrayed. Their partner vowed to love and honor them forever, and to stand by them in sickness and in health, and to devote their lives to them. With divorce, all of that is taken away. Those promises of love, fidelity, and companionship are broken, by the choice of the spouse pursuing the divorce. In contrast, when d...
As I grow older, I will attempt to create a life that I can look back on and think, “That was a life worth living.” Recently, my boyfriend’s grandfather passed away. He knew that his last day was near, but he kept saying that he was not sad, for he had lived a long full life (Matthew Morel, personal communication, February 2016). Contrarily, my grandmother, who is still living today, is obviously in a state of
It is common for those experiencing grief to deny the death altogether. Many people do this by avoiding situations and places that remind them of the deceased (Leming & Dickinson, 2016). However, by simply avoiding the topic of death and pain, the mourner only achieves temporary relief while in turn creating more permanent lasting agony (Rich, 2005). In this stage, mourners will begin to feel the full weight of the circumstance. Whether the death of a loved one was sudden or long-term, survivors will feel a full range of emotions, such as sadness, guilt, anger, frustration, hopelessness, or grief. While many of these emotions can cause serious suffering, it is important for the survivor to feel whatever emotions come up and deal with those feelings, rather than trying to suppress any
I am an undocumented student at UC Davis. When I am asked a simple question such as, "describe your personal experiences", I ask myself: Where do I begin?
All of my life, until I was eighteen years old, I didn’t understand the concept of grieving. Grief just hasn’t been something I’ve ever had to experience before. Because of my lack of experience I had no understanding of what grieving felt like. All of his changed for me on July 29th.
Regardless of how many people tell me “crying is good for you”, I find myself completely avoiding it for reasons I can not explain. This is strange to me because l am not immune to the pleasure a person feels when they are finished crying nor do I lack experiences to cry over. However, this creative writing assignment brought tears to my eyes for the first time in months. My first impression of “I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom,” a poem written by Kim Dower was not so pleasant. As I began to read the poem my stomach curled up into a knot and the weight on my shoulders seemed to be increasing by the second; I was forced to lower my head. Before reaching the middle of the reading my eyes were clinched shut and I was weeping. After gathering
"The truth is everyone knows, 'almost,' 'almost' is never enough," as the song goes. "Almost," apparently, was never enough for a woman who was only an hour away from a happy ever after when the love of her life told her that he cannot marry him. As posted by Mirror, Cyndi Maisonneuve, who said she was "dumped" by her groom-to-be while she stood in her long white gown and her, wrote a letter to share her heart-breaking experience. In her letter which was shared by The Guardian, Maisonneuve said as the wedding guests waited on a beach in Hawaii, her then-future husband came into the bride's room and told her that they have to talk alone.
• This quote is significant because of my experiences with people passing away. The careful wording and language you speak leaves a significant mark on one’s heart. Describing the process of death is extremely agonizing even when funerals are formal and well planned out events. The ceremony is filled with tears and pain, words cannot fully describe exactly what it feels like. All we can hope for is for them to have a good afterlife.
Summer vacation, and school ends for about three months, and then you have as much fun as you can, then back to school… right? Well I had to go to summer school, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Everything was going fine, I had a job after summer school, and that was going fine as well. They say that summer is supposed to be fun and exciting, and it usually is for me and my family. However in July my father started coughing up blood. My father usually doesn’t make it his top priority to go to the doctors, so he waited about four weeks until he really didn’t feel good.
The journey of life follows a predetermined pattern; we evolve from needing influence and guidance to finally reaching that point where our lives are up to us. I consider myself very lucky up to this point in my journey. Some people become sidetracked and wind up on a far different course than initially planned, but the detours I made have only assisted in embellishing the individual instead of devouring it.
There have been tons of things that I have learned and been taught in my life, by a number of people such as family, teachers, or even friends on occasion. The things they taught me vary from math and other related subjects to just some truly simple yet meaningful life lessons. However, there is nothing quite as unique, quite as special as a person teaching themselves a life lesson. It really is an amazing accomplishment for a person to teach themselves something. It is not quite as simple as another person teaching them something because it is not just the transferring of information from one person to another. The person instead has to start from scratch and process the information they have in their mind in order to come up with a new thought
“Grief does not change you. It reveals you.” - John Green, The Fault in Our Stars All of us say we want to live everyday like it’s our last, but most of us are just talk. Living everyday like it was my last still wouldn’t compare to the times I’ve already lived to see. Why would I want to jump out of a plane when I’ve already walked hand in hand down paths with an angel?